


Love is Not Enough (To Put My Enemies to Sleep)

by aintweproudriff



Series: Royalty/Magic AU [3]
Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: M/M, Multi, rebellious boys, their povs about the royalty reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-28 00:44:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13260051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aintweproudriff/pseuds/aintweproudriff
Summary: Prompt: The other boys' point of view when they find out that their friends are royalty





	1. Albert's Point of View

**Author's Note:**

> yall this was much more fun to write than I thought it would be

Albert hated every second of the ride to the air kingdom, plain and simple. He much preferred running through the trees of his own kingdom to being pulled in a carriage to someone else’s. He hadn’t wanted to leave his castle, hadn’t wanted to have to stay in some foreign country where all his mom, the queen, would do was argue with other adults, people who were stuffy and obsessed with their own royal status. His mother hadn’t wanted to let him go, either. When he’d complained to her about it, she’d looked at him pitifully. 

“I’d keep you here if I could,” she had said. “I hate the politics of power, it stresses your mom out too much. And I just think that maybe,” she brushed hair out of his face, “maybe you shouldn’t have to deal with it. I don’t want you to do things that are difficult, and I don’t want you to have to learn to argue and debate with others. It’s never going to bring peace. I almost wish you could avoid being king at all. But, of course, sometimes we have to deal with things we don’t want to, and sometimes it’s part of the deal we make. If I had known that I would have to understand all of these political things in order to calm your mom down when she gets into a mood, oh my goodness,” his mother looked into the distance. “I didn’t think about having to raise a child into politics when she asked me to marry her. It’s been worth it, though, I promise. Because out of it, I got you, and I got her, and - even if I don’t always want to be - I’m a queen,” she smiled. Albert had smiled back at her and hugged her. 

Now, in the carriage with his mom, he listened for a few moments to what she had to say. 

“It is difficult, obviously, to reason with the other members of royalty. The kingdom of fire, for example, asks for too much in the eyes of the air kingdom. The key is to focus on self-preservation. If their requests are not too detrimental to us, we accept. No matter what the others say. That way, peace is achieved and we can go back to a peaceful, normal life.”

He tuned her out before the carriage even reached the borders. Just like his mother, he wished he didn’t have to go through this. Apparently, his mom thought the same thing, just had a different tactic. As much as it made sense, he couldn't help but wonder about what might happen to the other kingdoms if they accepted any kind of requests. If the fire kingdom took away all of the other kingdom’s land or resources, what would happen to the people of that kingdom? Not just the royalty, but the normal people too. People like his friends, like Elmer or Race, who might have lives ruined by the fire kingdom. And if Albert’s mom - if Albert - accepted any kind of conditions, would that be their fault? The politics were hard, and he didn’t like them. But if he let himself do nothing, it would make everything harder. He had a responsibility to learn about the way that these negotiations worked, and he intended to follow through. 

The people of the air kingdom cheered as the carriage made its way up the mountain, and Albert decided that there were a few good things about being royal. Even if he didn’t care for the responsibility, it was certainly an exciting feeling to have people clapping for you, celebrating that you were there. The carriage pulled into a huge stable, and his mom opened her door. He cracked his open too, and as his feet hit the floor he saw something out of the corner of his eye. A head of dark hair, a cadence in a step that Albert recognized very well. He jerked his eyes away. That wasn’t possible, it just wasn’t. 

“Mom?” he said, his voice cracking. “I want to go, uh, look around a little. Is that okay?”

“Alright,” she said, her eyes confused. “Just come into the palace when you are finished, and be quick. No one likes someone who is late.”

“Thank you,” he nodded politely at her. “I will be fast.” With that, he took off in the direction of a person in another part of the stable. He stopped when he reached the mouth of the stall. There were two beautiful, red-brown horses. Tying them up was a person Albert was sure he knew. 

“E-excuse me?” Albert said, his hands shaking only a little bit. The person turned around, and Albert’s mind fizzled. “Spot,” Albert grinned. “I knew it was you.”

Spot’s eyes bugged. “What the hell? What - Albert, what are you doing here?”

“I’d ask you the same thing!”

“I asked you first,” Spot stood up straight. He still wasn’t as tall as Albert. 

Albert’s royal clothes suddenly felt like weights, pulling him down. There was no way to get out of something like this with a little lie. “I’m, um, here on business. To meet the royals of the other kingdoms.”

Spot laughed, his face still in shock. “So you’re- you’re the prince? Of the earth kingdom? You’re royal.”

“Yeah. And you’re-”

Spot’s chest rose and fell heavily. “-Prince Sean. That’s my real name. Is Albert yours?”

“Yes, yes, of course!” Albert put his hands out in front of him. “I’d never even thought about using a fake name, oh my god that’s clever.”

Spot looked smug. “Thanks. I guess I wanted to avoid a moment like this.”

“Yeah, because that worked out so well,” Albert laughed. “I’m glad to see you, though. I was so nervous about what the other princes would be like. I thought they’d all be jerks for sure.”

“Well, yeah, you’re lucky you’ve got me then.”

“No, no!” Albert teased his friend. “At least they can’t be worse than you!”

“Shut up,” Spot said, but he grinned and patted the horse on the side. “We should head in, huh?”

“Yeah,” Albert glanced toward the huge door. “I don’t wanna. Can’t we just, like, run outta here?”

“I don’t wanna go either,” Spot laughed. “But I think we don’t get to just run away this time. I’ll go if you go?”

Albert smiled, a spark of an idea forming in his brain. “Only if you let me do this first,” he stepped forward. 

Spot wasn’t an idiot; he grinned and mimicked Albert’s stance. Taking it as permission, Albert bent down and met Spot’s lips. Spot stepped away a few seconds later, a stupid grin on his face. 

“How long’ve you been waitin’ to pull a stupid line like that?” he asked. 

“Probably too long. Should we go now?”

Spot nodded, and pulled Albert’s arm as he led him to the door, only dropping it when Albert started pushing the door open.


	2. Race's Point of View

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i know this chapters super short

Prince Anthony was not the kind of person who dealt with pressure well. For evidence of this statement, someone only needed to look at the fact that he was prone to sneaking out, forgetting his identity, and climbing trees just so he could feel a rush of adrenaline, just so he could feel free. And even sometimes that felt like too much responsibility. He missed sneaking out sometimes on purpose, abandoning his friends for the night because it just felt so much better to cancel, to wonder if they were thinking about him, to convince himself that they missed him. Of course, this issue with responsibility and duty was not the kind of fault someone would want to find in a prince - a future king - of an entire area.   
Anthony knew this fact very well, since he had heard it a million times from his mother and father. Apparently, it “wasn’t fitting of royalty” to “have issues with authority” or “deny their role”. Which, if he was really honest with himself, he understood. It made a lot of sense that they would want a responsible ruler of the kingdom they loved so much. It made even more sense that they would want their son to be a good member of society, polite and helpful and unafraid of being an adult. But thinking about it from his parents’ side took more work, and he preferred to skirt around the rules and be Race. Race was funny and cheeky, teasing his friends who were exactly like him and also nothing like him. Race was fearless, kissing boys in the middle of the woods and leaving them speechless. Race didn’t have a care in the world, and he certainly wasn’t heir to any kind of throne. Anthony was Race. Anthony had never been Anthony. 

“My eldest son,Prince Anthony,” he heard from downstairs, “is… out for a while.” His mom was bluffing. She knew very well that he had been in his room after they had fought, she just wanted to maintain a royal reputation. “He will be back soon.” 

He turned away as she kept talking to the other royal family. Race didn’t want to go down there until he absolutely had to. 

And after a few minutes more of nervously pacing around his room and fixing his hair, he heard his mother again. “And my Anthony should be here soon!” she said, her voice light and airy but like a sword aimed just at him. He shrugged in his mirror, and decided that the only thing to do now was to face his own death. He stepped out of his room and onto the top of the huge staircase.   
Below him was a group of people he had never expected to see in this context. He didn’t know what the feeling was, but it was akin to being touched with a live wire. The chill that ran up his spine was oddly heated, and the shock made him have to bite his lip to keep from smiling. 

“Here he is, a little late but here nonetheless,” his mother reached out to him, as if apologizing silently for their spat. He couldn’t have cared less about their argument a few hours ago; it was irrelevant now. 

“Thank you mother,” he managed to say. “I’m so sorry I’m late. Are these-” he had to know if what he was thinking was correct “-the other princes?”

“Yes they are,” she said, joyful that he had joined the group. “This is Prince Elmer.”

Anthony shook Elmer’s hand. His friend muttered “Race” softly, and he knew he couldn’t smile. 

“This is Prince Sean, of the fire kingdom.”

Spot’s face was gleeful, like he’d opened a present he hadn’t expected. Obviously, he had processed this situation more than Race had. 

“And Prince Albert, from the fire kingdom.”

Albert also found the whole thing hilarious, trying to make his smile innocent. 

When their parents began to move to the next room, Race gestured at them in disbelief that they could also be princes. That they could be princes and not tell him that they were royalty! Of course he’d done the same thing but it was for his own safety, not to mention his own sanity. If they’d known he was royal they would have treated him differently. And just like that, he saw their side of things too. 

Elmer shushed them and everyone took their seats around the table.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you thought!


End file.
